Blink of an Eye

by William S. Cohen

  “So what’s on the Principals Meeting agenda?” Quinlan asked.

  “Get everybody on the same page, Ray,” Falcone replied.

  “Including William Bloom, our revered secretary of state? Mr. Goodbye Day?”

  Falcone thought of his two DEFCON time lines. The one from the Office of Secretary of Defense George Kane showed that General Wilkinson had called Secretary Kane once, suggesting the one-notch rise of DEFCON and getting Kane’s acceptance. The time line from Air Force One showed two calls from Wilkinson, one presumably to instruct the pilot to go to DEFCON Three and a second call—that one to Quinlan. Falcone imagined Wilkinson and Quinlan had teamed up to swiftly build a culpability case that would incriminate Bloom and the State Department rather than Wilkinson and the Department of Defense.

  Falcone filed away what he had learned, treating it like a deposit in a bank, saving the information but not knowing how it would be spent. His job was to put things together, not to make decisions or make policy. But he could push and pull, advise and react. He served the President, and sometimes he had to do that in ways that the President did not need to know about.

  *

  WHEN the motorcade reached the White House, Oxley headed for the Residence, Falcone and Quinlan for the West Wing.

  Back in his office down the hall from the Oval Office, Falcone unlocked a drawer in his desk, dictated a memo-to-self about the backseat conversation into a small digital recorder, returned it to the drawer, locked it, and pocketed the key. He called Anna Dabrowski to tell her that the President was back and the Principals Meeting was on. She and her assistant put out the call to the Principals, who already were on alert for the meeting. Although Dabrowski usually attended such meetings, Falcone said “good night” to her, knowing that, according to West Wing ritual, you did not go home until your boss said those two words. “Good night,” she repeated.

  At twenty minutes to ten, Falcone left his office and walked down a short flight of stairs to the ground floor of the West Wing. He turned right and entered a foyer guarded by a Marine. By tradition, members of the cabinet did not have to show their photo identification badges to enter the Situation Room. Falcone, a powerful presidential aide but not a cabinet member, was neither fish nor fowl (“neither fish nor flesh,” as Anna’s aunt Eva put it).

  Falcone was inevitably treated as a cabinet member at this checkpoint, since he ran the NSC, and the NSC ran the Situation Room. But Marine guards did not let anyone, including Falcone and cabinet officers, pass without placing cell phones in a lead-lined box on a table that stood next to the Marine guard.

  Falcone placed his smartphone in the box. The Marine saluted, opened the door, and stood aside for Falcone to enter a narrow hall that linked a suite of separate rooms: a video conference room where the President and his advisors spoke to, listened to, and saw the facial expressions of battlefield commanders; the ultra-secure President’s Briefing Room, ready for the commander-in-chief when he wanted a meeting place less populated than the Situation Room; the Watch Center, and finally the Situation Room itself, officially known as “the intelligence management center.”

  Fifteen minutes early for the Principals Meeting, Falcone stopped in at the Watch Center, where he chatted with one of his handpicked duty officers who manned the center twenty-four hours a day. Three others—a Navy lieutenant commander, a CIA analyst, and an Army major—were working at computer terminals connected to Intelink-TS, part of the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System.

  On Intelink-TS, the White House and other high-level consumers got the closest-held secrets, such as the latest chatter from intercepts of Al Qaeda communications and photos from drones flying over Pakistan. Intell-TS was tightly administered, much like the State Department’s Net-Centric Diplomacy, the worldwide computer system that had been illegally downloaded on an Army computer to provide WikiLeaks with more than 250,000 U.S. embassy cables.

  The Watch Center also received contributions from the National Counterterrorism Center, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI Counterterrorism Division, the Department of Homeland Security, and any of the thirty-five Joint Terrorism Task Forces in American cities that hopped out of the hierarchy and found a way to make a report on their own.

  In a few hours, the gleanings from the Watch Center would be distilled into the Morning Book, prepared for the President, the Vice President, Falcone, and senior White House staffers chosen by the President and Ray Quinlan. Besides that, the President would be handed the President’s Daily Brief.

  Falcone’s thoughts went back to the National Counterterrorism Center. He wondered how many secrets rolling through that mill were not rolling into the Watch Center or appearing on the very special, very secret documents that would be read by President Oxley.

  Walking into the Situation Room, Falcone, as usual, found himself to be the first to arrive. It was, after all, his turf, and at both cabinet meetings lacking the President, and at meetings when assistants and specialists of the NSC Secretariat gathered over routine crises, he took the head chair at the long, gleaming table with its large leather chairs, six to a side. On the walls of the long room were six large plasma screens controlled by communications specialists under Falcone’s direction. And in lesser, but comfortable, chairs arrayed along the walls were deputies, assistants, and aides, the people Falcone liked to think of as the ever-changing supporting cast to the stars in the big chairs.

  President Oxley would, of course, take the head chair and the Principals would take seats according to the pecking order he had established. Falcone walked around the table, satisfied that each seat had before it a bottle of water and glass, next to a yellow legal pad and a coveted ballpoint pen labeled WHITE HOUSE.

  Over the objection of computer zealots, Falcone had barred all electronic devices—except for the heavily encrypted iPad or smartphone that President Oxley sometimes decided to bring. As Falcone told anyone who complained, “Every word in this room is recorded and every minute is captured by highly visible cameras. Those words and images are for the President and no one else. If he wants to share them, that’s his business.”

  Vice President Maxwell J. Cunningham came in and took the seat at the left of Oxley’s chair. “Evenin’, Sean,” he drawled. Cunningham was a pudgy former Alabama congressman and ex-Speaker whose amiable exterior cloaked a tough politician who kept score for Oxley on friends and foes on the Hill.

  “Thanks for getting here early,” Falcone said. “I wanted to warn you that you’ll be getting a call from Ray Quinlan.” He told Cunningham about the idea for a joint committee and added, “I’ve got a name for you: Gregory Nolan. He’s on the House Judiciary Committee.”

  Nolan, a member of the House from Minnesota, had filed an impeachment resolution months before, declaring that President Oxley had violated his oath of office by signing a U.S.–Russia treaty that banned the use of weapons in space. Most newspapers mentioned the resolution in a short story on an inside page. Television pundits dismissed Nolan as a publicity-seeking fool who had pulled off a meaningless political stunt. Political bloggers called him a whackjob. The only Nolan photograph that newspaper editors thought appropriate was one showing the mustachioed congressman playing bingo with constituents.

  The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee did not allow a hearing on Nolan’s resolution, effectively consigning it to legislative limbo.

  “Nolan filed another impeachment resolution today,” Falcone said. “This time he’s saying that the President had abdicated his responsibilities as commander-in-chief by failing to prevent the attack on the Elkton. Now, if the Speaker were to appoint Nolan to…”

  Cunningham pondered Falcone’s suggestion for a moment. Then he lightly punched Falcone on the arm, and, laughing, said, “You clever ole son of a bitch! Put him on the committee and shut him up. I’m on it.”

  “Thanks, Max.” Falcone knew that anything he said to Cunningham would never leak.

  “You are very welcome, Sean. Quite a day
. What’s the latest?”

  “I’m saving my important disclosure till the rest of the gang gets here,” Falcone said. “But I’ll let you in on a secret.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We don’t know shit.”

  “In other words, it’s not that different from Army days,” Cunningham said. He and Falcone were the only military veterans among the Principals. Cunningham had been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for wiping out a Vietcong machine-gun nest while bleeding from three bullet wounds in his shoulders and chest. He sometimes said that all he had to do to get elected was show his scars.

  8

  AT THE West Wing entrance, black SUVs lined up to drop off the rest of the Principals, who silently made their way to the Situation Room. Falcone nodded to each one: Secretary of State Bloom, looking a bit pale, accompanied by Deputy Secretary Marilyn Hotchkiss, a slim, regal woman; Secretary of Defense George Kane and General Gabe Wilkinson; Director of National Intelligence Chuck Huntington, with three tired-looking deputies; Sam Stone, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, with the head of the CIA Clandestine Service; and Secretary of Homeland Security Penny Walker, who ruled over more than 180,000 people in twenty-two agencies but who walked into the Situation Room alone.

  Falcone notified the Residence that the Principals had assembled. Eight minutes later, President Oxley entered and took the chair at the head of the table. Ray Quinlan, who had followed Oxley into the room, slid into the chair at the end of the room so that he was in the President’s direct line of sight.

  Tiny red lights lit up alongside the camera lens that poked from the walls at each end of the room, and a rectangular black indicator light appeared: MIC ON, warning everyone in the room that their words were being recorded.

  “First of all,” the President said, “this meeting was called to find out what happened. I want to know that before I try to find out why we let it happen. So I am starting with Chuck. Who did it, Chuck?”

  Chuck Huntington turned to one of the men seated behind him. The deputy handed Huntington a paper. He stared at it for a moment, as if he were trying to translate it. He made a slight sound, as if clearing a throat that did not need clearing, and said, “It is our best belief at this time that the Elkton was attacked by two indigenous individuals who may or not be associated with Al Qaeda. This is, of course, a preliminary finding.”

  “Any connection with Iran?”

  “Not to our knowledge, Mr. President.”

  “What about the GNN report?”

  “We have no reason to believe or disbelieve it, Mr. President.”

  “Sam? What does the CIA think?”

  Sam Stone, a hard-eyed man, said, “We think it’s a red herring, a phony, Mr. President.”

  “Based on what?” Huntington cut in before the President could speak. Stone ignored him.

  “We simply analyzed the GNN tape, Mr. President. Obviously, the correspondent on the scene, Ned Winslow, did not have a chance to get any information beyond what he had witnessed. The information claiming Iranian involvement was reported by a news reader in a GNN studio in Washington.”

  “And?”

  “We asked NSA for whatever intercepts they picked up during the twelve minutes from the time the Elkton was struck to the time the news reader said, ‘the suicide boat that struck the Elkton is of Iranian origin.’”

  At the mention of the NSA, Secretary of Defense Kane and General Wilkinson simultaneous looked across the table at Stone. The National Security Administration, the powerful eavesdropping agency whose budget far exceeded the CIA’s, was seemingly independent but officially under the Department of Defense. If Stone queried the NSA without going through proper channels, he and the CIA had strayed off-turf.

  “Iran is, of course, one of NSA’s watchwords in several languages,” Stone continued. “Of the millions of intercepts picked up in those twelve minutes, Iran was picked up, in English, four hundred and thirty-six times. When the landline phone numbers of GNN’s Washington’s news bureau were applied to the NSA Iran collection in that time frame, analysts came up with nine hits. And one stood out.”

  “Coming from where?” the President asked.

  “An anonymous smartphone with no known Iranian connection,” Stone responded. “The NSA is very conscious of this particular smartphone, which seems to be unique and untraceable and is a target of an NSA special team. But NSA says any further information on that is so sensitive that we can only be told that the origin of the call is apparently domestic. But obviously someone at GNN accepted the call as authentic and was familiar with it as a source. Because of privacy rules, NSA could not identify the person who accepted the call and directed the information to the news reader.

  “The information about the Bladerunner was relatively accurate. But our preliminary analysis of the GNN film indicates that the boat was a Bladerunner knockoff, a type that is showing up in a lot of places around the Persian Gulf, and not just Iran. We believe that the caller was a provocateur, someone who was trying to put blame on Iran for purposes unknown.”

  “So, from an intelligence viewpoint, we don’t know a goddamn thing,” Oxley said. “I believe that sums it up.”

  Oxley turned toward Secretary of State Bloom.”Now, Bill, let’s hear how Goodbye Day came about.”

  *

  ON the day after Falcone and Cunningham talked about the appointment of Gregory Nolan to the committee investigating the attack on the Elkton, General Parker was in his study reading the latest classified report he had received from his principal contact in the Pentagon, Army Brigadier General Richard Castleton, military advisor to the Deputy Secretary of Defense. The report, prepared by U.S. Naval Intelligence, described the Iranian Navy’s recent acquisition of a new kind of missile boat, a catamaran that the report called China Cat because the craft had been built and sold by China.

  As Parker turned a page and began reading—“Faster and with a lower radar cross-section than boats with conventional hulls”—the phone in the holster on his belt quivered. He pulled out the phone and spoke the six numbers that appeared on a narrow screen and waited until two tiny screens showed green, signaling that the phone had accepted him and was ready to scramble the conversation.

  “I have just learned,” the robotic voice began, “that Falcone has made a clever move. He has arranged for our friend Nolan to be on the committee designed to whitewash the Elkton attack.”

  Parker was used to hearing “learned” from Isaiah. His ability to ferret information highly impressed the general, even though Parker’s many covert missions had taught him not to be surprised by dark national-security secrets hidden behind the facade of official information.

  “Through an intermediary I learned of Nolan’s appointment,” the voice continued. “Nolan is a very helpful fellow. He will have an even more helpful role in the near future, when he will gain national recognition. I want you to be informed, though I know you disdain politics. Nolan will be valuable. There will be a minority report, telling the truth. Yes, the truth.”

  “And Stanfield will be able to use it,” Parker said.

  There was a metallic laugh. “You are learning about the dirty game of politics, Amos. You are learning.”

  AUGUST

  9

  ON A night graced by the full moon, Falcone stepped out onto the broad terrace of his Pennsylvania Avenue penthouse, swishing around the ice in a glass of Grey Goose vodka. He shed his coat jacket and tossed it on one of two tufted chairs that, in calmer days, he had lounged in during nights like this. In the serenity of those days and nights, he could clear his mind of thoughts for DLA Piper. He gave himself some time for thinking about his own life, a chance for reverie. He rarely had such a chance anymore.

  But tonight had come in the midst of calm for Falcone. His job description did not include strategizing presidential itineraries or poring over polls to determine how much time President Oxley should spend in Michigan or whether first-time voters in Iowa were leaning to
ward him. So Falcone was able to view with some detachment the events leading up to the national convention and the renomination of Blake Oxley.

  The party’s problem, as Falcone understood it, had been to somehow make the convention exciting. Ray Quinlan easily switched roles from chief of staff to behind-the-scenes campaign director. All that Falcone knew from his aloof perch in Washington was what he saw on television, and that was not much. The networks all treated the convention in Kansas City as a routine event that did not warrant what once was called gavel-to-gavel coverage.

  The only excitement had centered on Vice President Max Cunningham. His renomination had been challenged by a Pennsylvania billionaire trying to buy her way into national politics. But Cunningham had called in enough congressional chits to squash her so hard that her name had not even been brought to the floor.

  Oxley’s acceptance speech was cautious, its muted theme “an economy that lifts every family.” The speech was more a look back at his accomplishments in restoration of America’s competence and credibility than a look ahead into an uncertain world. One of his accomplishments had been the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, but to mention that would conjure up images of the Elkton. Oxley’s unusually limp rhetoric passed over foreign entanglements; he used the phrase “here at home” nine times and only briefly spoke of the war on terror.

  Quinlan’s polls and focus groups had shown a lessening interest in external menaces and a burgeoning interest in jobs and house prices. If Quinlan’s campaign theme were printed on a bumper sticker, it would say, OXLEY, KEEPING AMERICA’S PROMISE. In fact, the blue-and-white bumper stickers merely said OXLEY.

  The Joint House-Senate Investigative Committee on the Elkton attack had been working for weeks, organizing and digging through a mountain of intelligence reports. The committee made its televised debut in the week following the convention. The highlight of the hearings was the arrival of an Iraqi informant, who was ushered into the hearing room by two Capitol police officers. Like the thin, hunched-over man they escorted, the officers had on bulletproof vests.